Star Colored Children
by Most Frabjous
Summary: A divide has begun between the stars; two universes colliding. A dusky-dark pokeverse and an Earth introduced to demons. Where will you be when the world ends? Submit-your-own-O.C, form inside.


_~Star-Colored Children~_

_{To each of us, a Devil.}_

_{To each of us, a Darkness.}  
_

.:Prologue:.

_I._

_[(always)]_

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

_Transmission begun._

_II._

_[(blink)]_

They call it the City of Crows, because it sounds just like the churn of a thousand black feathers, little messenger hawks of Death delivered; because you can see them everywhere, hunching over in the places where pigeons belong, their dark-coin eyes waiting, wanting, hungry for the heartbeat of a half-dead city filled with walking carrion. They swirl into the sky like ink down a drain, tight black spirals that quick dissolve under uncertain eyes. The City of Crows. The city where Death bides his time, humble under the coils of a great smog snake; where Death is just a charcoal plume away; where Death has been chained in brick and broken.

It is the color of sickness, a bleak dawn, the death of stars. It is withered and crumbling under the sun, a bamboo shoot drowning from the inside out. It is so ugly with darkness, even though the sky glows at night, all lit up from inside the broken ground-floor windows, from under the sidewalks lined with turpentine, from the headlights just leaving, always leaving, from the music he hears late at night, the swelling of a cello that sings only melancholy.

The stars are invisible, but he imagines them anyway. They are bright white lights on the inside of his eyelids, and if he thinks too hard, they spin like a tea cup, around and around, whirling until the ground under his feet melts away. He thinks he knows what they look like, because he knows what they_ should_ look like: windows, high in the sky, like he could blink and fly through into a world where his breathing didn't taste like dust.

_III._

_[(constant)]_

He is c o n s t a n t. A single, unchanging figure in a city full of always-changing-never-resting. But he is only constant in the things he hates; hates about himself, hates about his mother, hates-hates-hates about this godawful city.

He sometimes thinks he'd like to write a letter.

Maybe to his father. Maybe to the man on the left. Maybe to woman on the right. He imagines the words, spreading like butterfly ink across a perfect page. Maybe lined paper. Maybe not. He imagines he would have nice handwriting. Something neat and legible. Or maybe something looping and curving like the arcs of a crescendo [cello man, cello man, play for us cello man].

He tries and fails. It's a little sad and a little like the sting of a honey bee when he decides that it's pointless writing letters to people who won't – or can't – read them.

_IV._

_[(dilly-dally)]_

Sometimes he remembers to forget that he's wasting his life away in drowning apartments.

_V._

_[(endless)]_

The City of Crows teeters dangerously on the edge between broken-insane-get-away-from-me-mother-fu—

For this reason, he likes listening to the news on the old, faulty radio in the complex lobby. He sits in an overstuffed chair and listens until the landlord – all sweat and beady eyes – tells him to get out of his sight.

The murder reports are endless, like the _tick-tock-tick-tocking _of the ugly clock on the wall. He wonders often why and when the world turned ugly and redorangebrown. He hasn't seen green space in years. He doesn't count the dust-collecting fake plants that sit in every corner of every apartment building. Tucking his feet under him, he listens as the radio informs him, _Early this morning the body of Sonya Ivanov was discovered in the sewers by workers—_He touches the dial. _The severed head of young Mikhail Boudreau was found on a neighbor's windowsill. The police—_

"Get out of here, you brat," says the landlord.

He does what he's told.

_VI._

_[(forever)]_

Sometimes the scars hurt him. Sometimes they don't.

_VII._

_[(gone)]_

His mother won't be home for a while. When she reappears from Day Job Number Four-And-a-Half, she'll brush his cheek with a kiss and then she will be gone to Job Interview Sixty-Eight and then to Night Job Number Fifty. He has lost track of them in his head. There was a time when he used to be able to say, _This is my mother, she is a secretary-intern-teacher_. Now he says, _Get away from her you freak _instead.

"Get away from her, you freak," he says into the world, staring at the smog-yellow sky, scuffing his sneakers against the sidewalk. He thinks about murders and his mother at the same time and wonders if she is safe. Inside of his head, information whirls. _Late last night police received a distress call from one Historia Shmitt. Her body was later found on a rooftop…_

His voice echoes in the voices of night-black crows, get away, get away, get- he wishes he could.

He is caged forever.

_VIII._

_[(hit)]_

He thinks, This is where the story starts: a boy and a wall, a thug with a fist. Another murder in the nighttime. _Robert Andrei, sixty-four, was found last night in an alleyway…_

"Are you lookin' at _me_?" The voice is like a vinyl scratch, it whirrs on repeat inside of his head until he can make sense of it, until he can think past, Please don't hurt me. The wall is cold against his back, cold and hard and he thinks, I am going to bruise in the morning. _Are you lookin' at me? Are you lookin' at me?_ Had he been? He couldn't remember. Cotton constricted thoughts, _are you/are you/are you/are you-_

_Mom, are you gonna be able to getajob-paythebills-paytherent-comehometonight-lookatmeforonce-stopfeelingguilty-lovemeagain-takemeback?_

"N-n-n-n…" he starts, but it's stupid that he tries. Suddenly he can't think at all. He closes his eyes and thinks about the stars and watches them spin, spin, spin. He sings their names like a good-bye aria as they fly by: Andromeda, Antlia, Apus, Aquarius. _Nixi Aquarius Ganye was discovered in a train station this morning, her body mangled and…_

The fist in front of his face pulls back and the hand on his collar loosens, just a little bit, but it's all he needs. His trainers hit the ground to murder victims in his head. _Mourners gather over one Tanya __Andreev__ this afternoon. The victim of a vicious murder, she was laid to rest…_ He wishes he had wings instead of a wimpy frame and broken bones. He wishes he was good-looking and strong and smart. He wishes he could run faster and that he had a real home and he could maybejustonce see the stars.

But they are only wishes. They are only wishes in the city that hears nothing but the rustling of wings, where murders sing like songs in the darkness of the night.

A black little death hawk takes to the sky, a cello note in darkness.

_IX._

_[(integration)]_

_Transmission received._

_Prepare for integration._

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

_X._

_[(justice)]_

He looks at the sewer grate and thinks he can hide in there, if he's careful and doesn't slice his hands open on the rusted metal. He wonders if his mother is home yet, if she's safe, and then the wonders if he is going to die tonight. The grate is heavier than he expected, and he has to transfer a great deal of weight to his left side. The scars across his body ache like rubber bands ready to break. He can't see the man anymore, but he can still hear the radio in his head, blasting away between _After twenty six short years, Sharashi Mikaliki has left this world after a freak attack by wild animals_ and _Police have ended their search for teenager Gabe Lurveux after an anonymous report that led them to his body early this morning _and_ Justice is yet to be seen in the trial of Manauve Herber, a French gang member being held for the murder of young teacher Sam Kilkenny._

The grate lifts off with the shriek of metal and a waft of air that tastes like rotting meat, dust, city, and then he is leaning forwards, hearing his own [bittersweet empty shell of a boy] radio report glistening in his head: _Late last night, police discovered the body of one Tuxiford Fergus Janynx_ _the Third in the bottom of a sewer grate after receiving notice of a scream from an anonymous tip…_

He is scared for an instant before he thinks, Tux, man up.

Then there are scales, fury, and the inescapable impenetrability of darkness.

X-X-X

**A.N: This being a collab between the esteemed Happy2Bme and MouringShade, it is an O.C-submit story.**

**Are you awesome? Follow the form (which was stolen mostly from Happy) and submit - but it must be through Personal Message, or else we shan't take it and you shall be sad.**

**Name:**

**Age: **15-20

**Gender:**

**Hometown: **Either from the City of Crows or from a place in the pokeverse**.  
**

**Appearance: **Please be detailed; note any other physical features such as tattoos, piercings, birthmarks, etc. Please include eye color, height, and hair color, and do try to be realistic.

**Clothing: **Please be detailed, darling.**  
**

**Personality: **The more you give us to work with, the better; please be sure to include any weaknesses and/or fears, but also one talent/thing they enjoy doing.**  
**

**History: **We are open to some drama, but please be realistic.

**Family:**

**Pokemon: **Wonderfully rare. Up to three, and no killers. Please include nickname, disposition, and any little facts you find pertinent. **  
**

**Other: **Anything else you'd like to add [what they like to eat, their favourite colour, etc.]

**Opinion of Tux: **Are they a meanypants? Are they super sweet? Are they in love? This is actually incredibly important because it shows a great deal about the character.

**Please remember that our only rule is that it _must_ be sent through personal message. Characters sent through review will be ignored. We look forward to your submissions. :)**

**And for the duration of this story, however long it might be, neither Happy nor Shade owns any portion of Pokemon, because then we would be really deliciously rich.**

**Thank you for reading.  
**


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